The New Doctor! A Doctor Who Alternate History Story

Part 61 - Afterword, a few comments from the Author

To start with, I suppose apologies are in order.  David Burton, Ian Levine, Paul Bernard and Barry Letts are all real people, who I have abducted for the purposes of this little work of fiction.  

Paul Bernard and Barry Letts have passed away, so I suppose they won't care much, but I offer my apologies anyway to their friends and loved ones.  I hope that they see this as a fond tribute, from someone who loved their work.

David Burton and Ian Levine are still around.  I'm hoping that if they every see this, they won't be too offended.  But if they are, then my apologies.

But there's a certain trepidation in weaving real characters so intimately into a work of fiction. I can't make any claim of knowing any of these gentlemen well or at all.  Obviously I never met any of them.  

Regarding David Burton, there's a feature on him in the Doctor Who: Inferno DVD where he's speaking. It also shows him in various stills and publicity shots from his roles and projects. You can also find some interviews with him on youtube, although it overlaps strongly. And if you poke around, you can find his Actor's resume on line, with accents, 'stock character' preferences, and parts for the last fifteen years. He's also got a facebook profile.  I have no idea what he'd think of this.

There's a degree of fictionalization at work here. David Burton in this timeline may or may not resemble the real David Burton. He's certainly the inspiration. His face was in my mind's eye when I was writing him, and his voice from youtube or the DVD feature rang in my ear as I wrote him. My researches informed the person I created. The David Burton of this work of fiction is inspired directly from the material available about him, but more than that, I cannot say.

For the purposes of the timeline, the David Burton in here needed to be genuinely charismatic. Charismatic enough to walk into a room in the Grosvenor Hotel, and leave Bernard, Levine and some investors feeling "We've found the next Doctor" and willing to bet money on that.

He also needed to be talented enough that Millenium wouldn't just burn the footage of Monsters of Ness, but would be willing to take it to the BBC, and the BBC might be willing to take a chance on it. If David's story actually had any truth, he might not have been that good.

In the timeline, David is a bit of a ham, that's an impression I took from the research that I did on him. How much of a ham, I can't say. But it seemed like a critical aspect of the character, and fundamental to the 'charisma.'

Ian Levine's showed up several times on documentaries on the DVD's or in specials, and he has a thorough background that can be dug up on places like imdb.com, Wikipedia, etc. He's a well known and controversial figure in music and fan circles. Although he's got a reputation for being fairly incendiary, I find myself empathising with him.  I'm not the most likeable person myself.  I've tried to present him in a positive way.  My mother in law had a disabling stroke, so I have a great deal of sympathy for him.

As a  contrast, I wrote Ian Levine as rather resistant to David's humour and ham. My impression from the research is that Ian took Doctor Who quite seriously, who embraced the 'epic' 'dark' 'complex' aspects. So I visualized him clashing hard. That's a take on Levine. It's possible that the real man would have loved David's approach completely, whatever that would have been.

Barry Letts and Paul Bernard are less well documented. But there was information about them.  I saw them as decent, competent professionals, as they must have been to record the accomplishments of their careers.  That's how I wrote them.  Not much more nuance than that.

Most of the other characters, the rest of the Cast and Crew of the New Doctor, and all the stories, backstage and onscreen are fictional, obviously.  I drew heavily on my work on LEXX, my research on Doctor Who, my direct experience with film and video and my reading on B-movies and cult television. 

Where it seemed relevant, I've tried to provide annotations as to the real world.

But basically:  Sometimes, my dear, you just make shit up for the sake of telling a good story.

Thanks for sticking around.  I hope you enjoyed this.